Industry Gave Lawmakers $1.4 Million Over a Decade
By Michael D. Shear
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 30, 2006
RICHMOND -- Long before Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) called for new controls on the spread of homes and businesses across the suburbs, home builders and contractors were busy making campaign contributions to the lawmakers who will decide the fate of his proposals.
Now, just as the movement to regulate development is gaining broader support, that very targeted largess may pay big dividends for the industry in two legislative committees that have a long history of quickly and efficiently dispatching controlled-growth bills with a simple motion to "pass by indefinitely."
In the past decade, residential builders, contractors, developers and real estate agents have handed out about $1.4 million in campaign contributions to 14 members of the Senate Local Government Committee and 22 members of the House Counties, Cities and Towns Committee, according to a Washington Post analysis of campaign data compiled by the Virginia Public Access Project. No other industry has given as much to the lawmakers on those two committees.
In addition, some of those lawmakers accepted dinners and tickets to banquets and other events from developers and contractors, state disclosure documents show.
Kaine and lawmakers from both political parties have responded to public concerns about traffic congestion by proposing bills to increase the power and flexibility that local governments have to limit traffic-generating development. Such measures face a severe test in the two committees.
Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), the only member of the House committee to never have received a contribution from home builders, said the committee historically is "a funeral pyre for all those bills."
Marshall and other controlled-growth lawmakers have routinely sought new laws to slow or stop development. His bills -- offered without any big-time backing from a governor -- usually get 17 or 18 "no" votes on the 22-member House committee.
This year could be different. Kaine has put his political clout behind a plan to give city councils and boards of supervisors more authority to slow sprawl, triggering a legislative fight that has been building in Richmond for years.
"People are living a reality now where they look at these issues differently," Kaine told reporters last week. "Sure, I talked about them. I put them on the table. The way people are responding is a reflection of the reality they see."
Amateur oddsmakers in Richmond are still betting on the well-financed development industry. Bill Thomas, a top adviser to Democratic governors and the co-founder of the original Hazel and Thomas law firm, serves as the chief counsel to the home builders.
But the builders are facing angry citizens in rapidly growing suburbs who say that sprawl and development are the chief cause of traffic congestion. In their first big lobbying trip to Richmond last week, Fairfax neighborhood activists Bruce Bennett and Deborah Reyher pleaded with lawmakers to go further than Kaine.
"We're always concerned about the developers. We're always concerned about their money," Bennett said Tuesday. "But we are the voters, and we are just beginning to speak."
Command CentralThe Stewart-Lee House, a block from the Virginia Capitol, is a testament to the omnipresence of the development lobby.
Occupied by Robert E. Lee's family during the Civil War, it is owned by the Home Builders Association of Virginia and serves as command central for the industry's efforts to keep laws and regulation as friendly as possible.
The day after Kaine's speech, more than 100 builders, real estate agents, contractors and others gathered at the house for a "housing blitz" at the General Assembly. The last-minute effort was coordinated by the home builders' chief lobbyist, Mike Toalson, who armed them with committee lists, fact sheets and even pictures of the newly elected lawmakers.
"The more troops we have this year, the more effective we will be," Toalson said in a pre-blitz pep talk.
Toalson's operation is fueled by membership dues from more than 5,400 firms, according to its Web site. Those dues also finance the group's political action committee, which regularly joins with other like-minded PACs to support industry-friendly candidates.
The giving is equally robust in both chambers and is largely bipartisan. The top career recipient on the committees is House Minority Leader Franklin P. Hall (D-Richmond), who has accepted $145,844 from the industry in his 30 years in the legislature, most of that time as a member of the House majority.
Del. Terrie Lynne Suit (R-Virginia Beach), a mortgage lender, has accepted $124,052 from the building and construction trades. Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R-Fairfax) has accepted $49,259 since 2002 and Sen. Linda T. "Toddy" Puller (D-Fairfax) has received $123,496 during her 14-year legislative career.
Republicans -- who now control both committees -- got almost $715,000, while Democrats received just over $650,000.
A handful of committee members also received gifts from contractors and home builders. The Northern Virginia Building Industry Association paid three times for Sen. Patricia S. Ticer (D-Alexandria) to go to a gala. Titan America, a contractor, bought Suit dinner.
In Virginia, it is legal to buy dinner, offer gift baskets, pay for travel and lodging or take a lawmaker to a football game or NASCAR race. The gifts must be fully disclosed.
Lawmakers say that neither gifts nor campaign contributions influence their voting on development or other issues. "They know I support housing, and they want to keep me in office," Suit said. "Does the whole lot of money make a difference in how well they are received? Absolutely not."
Toalson said the money is not the reason his organization is successful. "We represent the American dream. That's why we win these things. It's about housing," he said, adding just above a whisper: "And the other stuff helps."
Lobbyists for a DayThe aide to House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) listened politely as Reyher and Bennett made their case for new and aggressive growth controls.
"I'd like to hear your position, since you speak for the speaker," Bennett said to legislative assistant Kathy Roberts.
"Well, I don't usually speak for the speaker," Roberts said. "I would have loved to have gotten you in with him, but just with such short notice . . ."
Reyher jumped in.
"We're in the building all day, and some of us may stay overnight," she said. "Let me give you my cell phone. If an opportunity comes up and he's interested, we'll drop what we're doing and come down."
That opportunity never came.
For most of a day, Reyher, Bennett and two other citizen lobbyists-for-a-day from Fairfax canvassed the General Assembly Building, hoping to serve as messengers for residents they say are fed up with growth.
Back home, they are experienced and savvy advocates for their causes, having fought and won battles over development in the Hunter Mill area of Fairfax County. Reyher recently started a Web site, http://www.fairgrowthnetwork.org/ , to organize the disparate groups in Northern Virginia.
In Richmond, though, they acknowledged being a bit overwhelmed. But the slow-growth movement has an ally on the third-floor, where the governor's office is. And as Reyher pointed out to several lawmakers, Kaine's election is often credited to ads calling for growth controls that he ran in Northern Virginia suburbs.
Kaine says he opposes ordinances that would slam the door on growth. But he has clearly affected the debate. Toalson and environmentalists came together on behalf of a Kaine idea that would allow local governments to transfer development rights from places where it is not wanted to places where it is. The bill passed the Senate Local Government Committee on Tuesday. On Friday, Howell announced a half-dozen GOP bills aimed at better coordinating development and transportation planning.
At the end of a long day, Bennett and Reyher said they were preparing to bring many more people to Richmond next month. In one day, they said, they had learned a lot about how the process works.
"Come in with an itemized list of the bills and lobby them," Bennett said. "There's nothing like looking your legislator in the eye."
Marshall introduced the governor's growth bills into the legislative hopper last week. Known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the Virginia constitution, he promises to use his skills to press for the growth controls. But he is not holding out a lot of hope of getting majority support on his committee.
"The best I thought we could get was 10 to 8 with a huge, massive lobbying effort," Marshall said, explaining that some colleagues who oppose the bills might not vote. "And that was with some people getting sick and some getting struck by lightning."
Staff writer Rosalind S. Helderman and staff researcher Derek Willis contributed to this report.
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